


Love always, Jared

by crucialandinert



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, Mental Health Issues, Therapy, Trauma, f-slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-04-16 08:56:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14161284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crucialandinert/pseuds/crucialandinert
Summary: He looked up at his psychiatrist with tears of joy in his eyes. “He wrote to me. He actually wrote to me!” At long last, after weeks of Jared’s importunate missives looped smoothly in crisp black ink across the buttery pages of the lovely leather logbook he’d bought for the purpose—Ed Chambers had finally replied.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if or when this will be finished. I think it might be helping me to be writing about trying to communicate with other self-states from Jared’s POV, which is much more chipper and resilient then my own of course.
> 
> The title comes from Jared's sign-off on his "Lordy, lordy look who's 40" letter - which is written from Jared to Donald. (http://www.piedpiper.com/a-look-to-the-future/)

_Dunn –_

_This is stupid. You’re a pussy. Eat shit._

He looked up at his psychiatrist with tears of joy in his eyes. “He wrote to me. He actually wrote to me!” At long last, after weeks of Jared’s importunate missives looped smoothly in crisp black ink across the buttery pages of the lovely leather logbook he’d bought for the purpose—Ed Chambers had finally replied.

* * *

It had been a difficult diagnosis to take in stride. Anxiety, panic attacks, the odd interlude of dullness or depression—those were par for the course, ups and downs, background music. Jared knew how to handle them, and was (secretly) quite proud of himself that he’d missed nary a day of work on their account. He’d hidden them well. He’d never let anyone else down.

Until—he did. Monumentally. Somehow, he still couldn’t believe it himself—he missed a meeting, a vitally important meeting with a potential investor for their C round; a meeting where Richard needed Jared, had been relying on Jared, his rock; and Jared had abandoned him, left him to the wolves, exposed and without help. Just like that time in the Adirondacks. Only, actual wolves had proved to be much more nurturing than VCs.

And Jared hadn’t just forgotten the time, and noticed with panic that he was late; something he’d never been prone to himself, but assumed would have been normal. He’d forgotten it existed. That it had been planned at all; even though it had been on his calendar for six weeks—his calendar he looked at daily, more than daily, first on arising and last before sleep. He’d spent the weekend, in fact, crunching numbers, preparing the powerpoint, meditating upon which precise inflection points to pepper with drumrolls. Yet, all that time was just... somehow, _gone_. He’d truly been as innocent of the knowledge of his absence as a babe; he’d been going about his business as though it were a normal day, until a lightly snippy ( _infinitely_  less than he deserved) text from Richard shocked him out of—what?—and he discovered to his horror, his absolute horror, what had occurred.

It was terrifying, to be honest. The idea that he couldn’t trust his memory, his brain—there could literally be countless things he had forgotten, that had disappeared, and how would he ever know? Even whether this exact same thing had happened before! Maybe nothing he thought he knew about himself was true; what are you, really, other than the image that is woven from your memory of how you’ve behaved in the past, what you’ve felt, what you’ve experienced.

Richard, tight-lipped, had wordlessly gone into his room to code as soon as he got in, but Jared couldn’t even bring himself to ask for forgiveness; which, of course, compounded the initial guilt, running his mind into loops of—you don’t _deserve_ forgiveness—but—how  _dare_  you not apologize—but—how dare you disturb him, how could you bring yourself in front of his eyes to even  _offer_  an apology, when you’ve done something so devastatingly terrible—but—every moment that ticks by without one, he hates you more.

So, hunched over on his cot, face buried in his hands and soggy with hot, confused tears is how Dinesh found him. He leapt up in dismay, began to apologize; how obstreperous, how disruptive, how awful for Dinesh to see him like this, he usually never cried that loudly, what a terrible failure, to permit his emotional incontinence to intrude so upon Dinesh’s concentration, ruining his day.

“Calm down, dude.” Dinesh lifted a hand. “I’m not pissed off at you. I just want you to sit down and blow your nose and you can go back to being insane when I leave.”

One hand over his mouth, the other on his chest, Jared nodded.

“I wanted to tell you–my dad’s a doctor—”

“Cardiologist.” Jared nodded.

“Yes, a cardiologist. Thank you for remembering, also, I meant to tell you, please don’t send him any more 'Just Thinking of You' cards, it’s really creeping him out.” He paused, but Jared merely bowed his head, and didn’t freak out any further, so Dinesh continued. “My dad always said, if you have memory problems, you should go and see your general practitioner because it can be a symptom of a lot of things, including cardiac disease. So maybe switch up your next appointment at the butthole doctor or something. But you shouldn’t ignore it. There. I’m done.”

Before Jared could thank him other than with those giant, shiny, dumb doll eyes, Dinesh had scrammed. Jared heard a muffled “Done making out with Long Tall Sally?” and a “Fuck you, Gilfoyle” from the other side of the door; and with great difficulty kept the tears silent this time. The incredible kindness Dinesh had shown him, to notice, to care for his well-being, to want to help him—ached echoingly, as though the tender contents of his chest had been everted, and a stinging cavern exposed to the air.

Deep breaths, Donald. And pick up the phone.

* * *

G.P., to neurologist, to butthole doctor (that was a side trip): physically and gastrointestinally, he was fit as a fiddle. No brain lesions on the MRI, no abnormal electrical activity or evidence of seizures, no more Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Just a referral to a psychiatrist.

And then: a long, long diagnostic interview and a careful, thorough taking of his life history, which Jared observed as if from outside his body. He heard himself describe the whole sordid tale with his customary cheerful tone, careful, as ever, not to make too big a deal out of things; but as he went along, he began to realize…oh. It actually sounded—horrible. Somehow it had never seemed that way before. How had it never seemed that way before? Sure, everyone faces challenges in life, as he’d always told himself, and  _he_  had no right to complain, his burden was leagues lesser than billions of others with whom he shared his voyage on Spaceship Earth, but—when he reflected, from beginning to end, on the proportion of his 29 years that had been really quite painful…it did seem… well, if it had been someone else who were talking, he’d baldly say it was awful. He’d be shocked, for that person. In fact, he would expect them to be very unwell. Get that person some help, and quickly, is what he would think.

A buzzing feeling filled his head. He didn’t realize he’d paused in his recitation until the soft voice of the psychiatrist reached his ears. “Jared? Can you tell me how you’re feeling right now?”

Jared shook his head no, mutely. A tissue made its way across space. He grasped, and twisted it in his hand.

“OK, let’s stop here for today. That was about everything we needed for your intake, and if you’d like to come back next week at the same time, I can share my thoughts with you then.”

Jared forced his eyelids wider, and nodded yes. Everything looked very far away, as though the seat of his being had receded backward, down a tunnel, while the front of his face remained where it was; he could still feel it, mask-like, in the distance. It was decidedly strange.


	2. Chapter 2

Before he knew it, Jared found himself back on the psychiatrist’s couch, attempting to answer a very difficult question.

“How was my week?”

He trawled around inside his head but it was blank as an egg. What had he done yesterday, for example? Last night, even? He knew that he had known it, in the indeterminate past, but that information was, somehow, gone. He felt startled and newborn—and a bit of a failure. He’d tried hard to give the psychiatrist the kind of answer Jared assumed she wanted: detailed, revealing, cooperative. But all he could manage was a dry-mouthed “fine.” And then somehow it was over, and he couldn’t remember much of the session, either. But he remembered one thing. It rang in his ears. His diagnosis.

Dissociative Identity Disorder.

It felt like he’d been shot. At least, as best as he remembered what that felt like. DID? Isn’t that fictional? Or for fakers, malingerers, hapless gulls manipulated by unscrupulous and hypnotic therapists, thriller authors, sensationalist yellow journalists. Not Vassar grads. Not COOs. Not owners of neat-as-a-pin condos, put-together-dressers, those whose hair is always neatly-combed—right-hand men of men like _Richard Hendricks_ , for gosh sakes.

_Jared – it’s Donald. I’m worried you’re forgetting me. Are you forgetting me? I am alone here._

–

It felt a bit better once he had a goal. He put his head down and studied until he understood the way the disorder worked—manfully making it through all 300+ pages of van der Hart, Nijenhaus and Steele's _The Haunted Self_ —and he read through PubMed for the latest data on evidence-based treatments, and he pledged compliance to his doctor; more like blind fealty. No treatment works if you don’t adhere to it scrupulously and put your back into it, 110%. Meds, taken precisely on schedule, every day. Weekly therapy sessions, no matter how painful, how drained he was afterward, sent how long into strange states, how much he dreaded them. And the notebook.

The goal was “co-consciousness.” Instead of blacking out and losing time while one or another “fronted,” controlled his identity and actions—apparently what had happened when he missed the VC meeting—he was meant to establish lines of communication between them so he—they—could coordinate. This was reassuring, in a surreal way. Perhaps all he needed was a good project manager. And Jared was—at least in part—a gosh darn good one of those. The best practice for achieving this co-conscious state, was to get the various… it was hard to say it, even to himself—let’s say “passengers” to write to each other, find out who each other were, and work on establishing common ground. Jared cracked the journal’s spine—he’d gotten himself a nice one at Paper Source, to show respect for the endeavor—crisply uncapped a brand-new fountain pen, and began to write. Jared smiled wryly to himself. He had always enjoyed a good epistolary novel. 

_Dear Everyone,_

_I want you to know you are a loved and valued part of my life—part of me? I’ve read a lot about it now and I understand why we are this way, why it was necessary. Or should I say “I” understand why I am this way? That’s one of the very difficult things about this, I know you will understand. Being aware of it, not like I used to be, makes it suddenly hard to use the word “I.” I keep wondering what it means—who it means? Does it mean anyone? If I can be myself, but also you, I’m truly frightened that I am not really anyone at all. I’ve read that there is no “original personality” and that is indeed consonant with my new attachment-theory-based understanding of child development. Apparently all infants have shifting selves that arise based on what they’re experiencing, and it’s love from a stable attachment figure that allows them to integrate these as they grow._

_Somehow I don’t feel like finishing this letter anymore._

_[Donald. I’m worried you’re forgetting me. Are you forgetting me?]_

_I can’t do this. I’m going away. I’m going to sleep. I don’t want to be co-conscious, or conscious at all. I want there to be walls. It’s better if there are walls. I feel sick. It’s awful, it’s awful. There’s no way out._

_Love always,_

_Jared_

–

_Dear Ed,_

_Well, I’m learning more about you now that I am staying more present as an “observer self.” That is a quite odd, and if I’m honest, pretty disturbing and psychedelic experience in its own right. It used to be, that I fully believed I was you, I didn’t remember anything else. But now, it’s like I feel your feelings, I think your thoughts, yet I recall, there is a person named “Jared"—and/or a person named Donald, I’m not sure yet—who is different than you, Ed, and I was he. I know him like a story, like a collection of facts. And I begin to know you the same way._

_I used to admire you, Ed. I used to want to be you. In my eyes, you were a go-getter, a world-beater. A bro’s bro. And you did achieve some good things. But I am not proud of the way you treated people along the way. You can be very snippy and brusque, almost insouciant at times. Feelings were hurt._

_But now I see you've been with me much longer than you've been called "Ed." And you appear to be the seat of some of my most painful traits. You are the one who lacks the ability to feel any positive emotions. The one who feels as though they are dead, or living in a dead world, I understand now that is called "anhedonia"—when you are not angry. I'm afraid of you, too. There are so many ways you want us to die: you are always on the verge of lashing out in rage against me, for being a "p-slur," for getting my lunch eaten, for all the other things that happened, which you believe I drew down upon myself because of my weakness. But you hold no more care for yourself than you do for me. You always end up wanting to coldly cut ties with a world that holds nothing for you, and that you cannot make obey._

_I know I am supposed to feel sympathy for you. That I could make more progress, if I could. But I still just wish you’d leave me alone. My sincere apologies for that._

_Love always,_

_Jared_

\---

_Dearest Donald,_

_I have not forgotten you. In fact, I miss you, daily, hourly. I wish you were here now, not locked away behind some mute wall, invisible, inaccessible to me. I had just been able to begin seeing you as...beautiful. Yes, beautiful, Donald. Beautiful in your ceaseless struggles toward the light. Beautiful in the simple way you love, and the breadth your love encompasses, from the tiniest hatchling in the nest to the grandeur of human achievement such as a potential new internet. Beautiful in your openness toward the world, your blithe joy in leaping off cliffs, not in the suicidal way, in the other way. I mean to say that you are brave enough to take risks, and am having difficulty finding a better metaphor. Your childlike trust, your shining faith, your wide-eyed willingness to try again, and again, in the face of unspeakable, constant tragedy. But most of all: Donald, you are beautiful in your stalwart refusal to hurt others as you have been hurt. Some would call you a fool. I call you a miracle._

_How can you be, Donald? How can someone like you exist? Well, I guess we know the answer to that now. Because all the cynicism, the anger, the darkness that you are heir to, that burden has been shouldered by another. His name is Ed. And would you like to know a secret, Donald? I'm just as scared of him as you are. I'm afraid that to reconcile him, to bring him back, to integrate him into one inner life, to accept his reality as part of our own—would not all of your traits be extinguished? How could they survive? To greet this world with love, and without fear, would seem to perforce be an act of willful unknowing, an acrobatic feat possible only through the oddest of contortions. And now I am mixing my circus act metaphors. Best stop now before I become even more entangled in what i find so difficult to describe._

_Donald, I know that it is exactly such fears, the fears of other parts of my mind, that preserves us in our unfortunate situation. It really can't go on much longer this way. But, oh Donald, my most precious Donald, I don't want to lose you. I don't want you to die. I can't seem to imagine otherwise, than that if we opened the door to "Ed" and all he represents, the flood of his spite, his hatred, his dark polluting rage, would erase you and me—and all else in its path—as if we had never been._

_Love always,_

_Jared_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still in no particular order.

_Dear Jared,_

_I know this isn't quite what this journal is for, but, I understand you are getting quite frustrated and may be in need of an encouraging yet realistic pep talk. Addressing you this way, the way I've always done, the way many people talk to themselves, has gotten a bit hall-of-mirrorsish, ever since I've had to think of myself—us—differently. But I'll try not to get lost down that specific corridor right now._

_It's difficult to be the only one utilizing this resource. It's easy to feel you are scribbling into the void, when no one replies. There is the odd snippet from what seems to be a young or more primitive version of "Donald." And it—gendering it seems wrong somehow—only ever writes things like, "I'm alone," and "I need help," and "No one will help me." Loneliness is a bit of a motif I suppose. I must admit, that when even the people in your own brain won't respond to you, it can be quite a lonely feeling. One wonders if that is why they are there in the first place, as the result of the bone-chilling isolation of a child that feels it is without care, and going to die. Maybe one day I will hear from my old friend Harriet._

_Although I know it is perfectly normal and almost invariable in cases like mine, I do find it disturbing that I have this young-seeming part. A feeling of revulsion toward it overcomes me. These uncharitable feelings toward these parts are hard to fight, I am finding. Like my feelings about Ed. I'm almost relieved he doesn't contact me, to be frank. I am also aware that black-and-white thinking, "splitting" others into all-bad or all-good, is a symptom as well, and may very well be at play in my feelings toward Ed. Sigh. How often I have wished I could share all this with Richard, and garner the benefit of his remarkable insight and compassion._

_Well, where is your resourcefulness, Jared? It's not like you haven't experienced similar situations before; feeling as though you're the only one really giving a good solid try to a team effort. Although I know it isn't the case, it reminds me of how I am prone to feel about Pied Piper in my weaker moments. "Herding cats" doesn't begin to describe it—at times I feel, again somewhat uncharitably, that "herding Satanists" ought to take hold in the common parlance instead—yet, here we still are, surmounting every obstacle, no matter how many times nor how copiously the pelican of Fate evacuates on our heads, as our ever-outspoken, yet still-AWOL Erlich once put it—together, united as a team in the end._

_Maybe I should be trying to run these selves all simultaneously, like multitasking apps, and switch from each to each as the situation calls for. Does it sound exhausting? I know that for a real phone, it can drain the battery or at times overload a circuit and burn a perineum or two. But think how helpful it would be to be able to access at will Donald's optimism and spirit, or, Ed's hard-nosed negotiation ability. Of course, I am cognizant that all those traits do in fact belong to me, circumstance has just made it more difficult for me to access them simultaneously. It remains: if I accept that I can access Donald's traits, there is no longer a barrier to what I fear would be uncontrollable feelings and actions belonging to Ed—or to this creepy and unfortunate "young" one—and I can't seem to brave making the trade, despite my knowledge that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and cannot be fully present for its friends' needs._

_Has writing this letter gotten you anywhere, Jared? Perhaps. I do feel a certain renewed will to keep trying. If not for myself(ves), than certainly, for the ones I am so grateful and lucky to have in my life._

_Love always,_

_Jared_


	4. Chapter 4

_Dunn –_

_This is stupid. You’re a pussy. Eat shit._

He looked up at his psychiatrist with tears of joy in his eyes. “He wrote to me. He actually wrote to me!"

Jared couldn't believe what he was seeing. He'd opened up his logbook in session and there it was, a note from Ed, clear as crystal and bright as daylight. What a contrast the man's blocky, angular letters, pressed so hard into the paper, nearly tearing it on the sharp pen-nib, made to his own neat, lacy hand.

**Author's Note:**

> People with any traumagenic disorder often have an internalized version of an abuser that is the cause of a lot of the most dangerous and negative symptoms, although not always in the form of a fully-fledged alter as in DID. In this installment of art therapy, I'm trying to see if I can utilize Jared and Donald's relationship with Ed to wrestle with my own. 
> 
> For those for whom it might be helpful, I have found personally that this model has provided the most clarity and actionable steps to take: the Theory of Structural Dissociation of the Personality: http://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/index.html


End file.
